There is something uniquely grotesque about a man standing in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, the same building he helped hollow out, and promising the survivors he will lead them with integrity. But that is what Todd Blanche did Thursday.
Blanche, who spent his career as Donald Trump’s criminal defense lawyer before Trump installed him as deputy attorney general and now attorney general, stood before a depleted workforce and vowed to uphold the rule of law “without fear or favor.” He told them he would welcome their ideas. He encouraged disagreement. He admitted he would “not get every decision right.”
You do not get to purge the ranks and then ask the remainder to speak freely. That is not how power works. That is how abusers work.
Shealeah Craighead (Public domain) via Wikimedia CommonsThe Justice Department workforce has been gutted by mass firings and resignations under this administration. Career prosecutors who opposed politically charged decisions in high-profile cases were pushed out. Employees deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump’s agenda were shown the door. Thousands more left on their own because, as the DOJ alumni network Justice Connection put it, “leadership has consistently violated the principles Blanche articulated.” Prosecuting based on facts and law. Holding those who attack law enforcement accountable. Respecting the courts. Every single one of those principles has been trampled, and now the man who presided over the trampling wants the remaining staff to believe the trampling is over.
Blanche was confirmed by the Senate early Saturday morning by the narrowest possible margin. Two Republicans broke ranks and voted no, citing the politicization of the department. When members of the attorney general’s own party are publicly warning that the Justice Department has become a political weapon, the problem is not perception. The problem is structural. The problem is the person standing at the podium.
Blanche told the staff not to “focus on the negative” and to remember the “tremendous amount of good, positive work” the department has done in the past year and a half. This is the language of a manager trying to boost morale after a round of layoffs. It is not the language of the nation’s top law enforcement officer. The attorney general does not exist to make the workforce feel good about itself. The attorney general exists to ensure that justice is administered equally, that the powerful are held to the same standard as the powerless, and that the department serves the public, not the president who appointed its leadership.
C. Paul Jennewein (Public domain) via Wikimedia CommonsJustice Connection got it exactly right. “Blanche’s platitudes will only resonate if his actions start matching his words.” So far they have not matched. Not once. The gap between what Blanche says inside the Great Hall and what his department does to career staff, to investigative independence, and to the basic principle of prosecutorial discretion is not a gap that speeches can close. It is a chasm that only accountability can address.
Here is what solidarity with the career workforce actually looks like. It looks like demanding hearings on every politically motivated firing. It looks like protecting whistleblowers who come forward with evidence of politicized prosecutions. It looks like legislation that insulates career prosecutors from retaliation for doing their jobs. It looks like refusing to normalize the installation of a president’s personal defense lawyer as the head of an agency that is supposed to investigate that same president.
Blanche promised he would listen. The question is whether anyone with institutional memory is left to speak.